I hate being computer literate

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I hate being computer literate

I hate having bad teachers that dont know a thing; its so annoying. I swear, at my school (i'm in year 9 at high school) I could teach all of the computer classes and programming classes and I could replace the d***head guy who is payed to manage the school's LAN and the rest of the computer maintainance(sp?), but all he does all day, is delete random student's accounts so they have to come to his office all the time to restore them so they dont realise that there's nothing for him to do there! His office floor is lined with Microsoft Press books regarding win2kpro so everytime he needs to do something, he needs to refer to a book. He's so dumb aswell; hes like 20 yrs old and in the computer rooms there are roughly 35 computers per room and the rooms have 2 power outlets each! Once a fire started becuase of them and they still havn't fixed the problem.

Another thing that annoys me is that to do cs, you need to be in yr 11 and the most advanced thing taught is crappy VB (they start from psuedo code and move upwards)! I asked one of the students why they hadn't moved onto C++ and he said the teacher doesn't even know VB, he just makes them learn it staright from the text book!

And to top it off, i'm the only person in the school (including teachers) who knows C++ or anything beyond VB.

Originally posted by vVv So often pupils clain they knew more than their teachers, especially in CS. C'mon face_master, what are you trying to prove? If they were elite coders, they wouldn't teach you but instead make big money producing real software.

I'm not saying that they are elite coders -- i'm saying exactly the opposite! To teach CS, dont you think they should at least know what is in the course? They just say "uh, check the text book" when you ask a question about anything in computers. THEY HAVE ZERO KNOWLEDGE.

A factor which influences the content of hi tech courses, (and leads to them intevitably being out of date), is the ridiculous amount of lead time it takes to prepare a course, and then submit it for approval at various levels. If it is to be a course aimed at a recognised qualification, it can take two years to get it approved by the examination authority. Assuming that there are no major amendments to be made, then the course materials have to be produced and then we are ready for the first syudents to begin, what could easily now be a 3 years out of date course.

I'm not trying to mitigate poor teachers, but the system stinks when it comes to these fast moving subjects.

well my teacher has asked my team to do an RSA and DES cryptography implementation on a Linux system using gpp... I was wondering why.. and why we couldnt choose our own project.. Then we later came to know that she is doing her m.Tech and she needs to submit this project by for her SWS Project class.... WHAT CRAP... Hope she dosen come to this forum and read this.....

> If they were elite coders, they wouldn't teach you but instead make big money producing real software.
good point

> those who are going anywhere in the field of computing won't learn anything from school.
VERY good point

In VB class right now we're making excessive flow charts and program layouts for simple 10-15 line commission/tax/purchase style programs.

30 steps, for 5 lines of code.

heh, we just told her how to end a switch/case in VB format.

They have to have a job though.
I just wish there was some rule that said normal everyday people can't teach something as technical as, electronics, cars, computers, ETC. If you don't live it, or know every possible damn thing about it, don't teach it.

flowcharting and other visual documentation methods are something I wish they taught MORE actually. There should be class hierarchy, program flow, and general architecture documentation in more places than there are. Too often people get out there into the work world and stare at code with nothing to work with because there isn't any documentation.

As far as "those who are going anywhere in the field of computing won't learn anything from school" goes, that's probably not worded exactly right. You will learn plenty in math courses that will apply. The problem is in the computer science courses.

I fully agree.. teachers does not seem to know much about anything... our "computer science" teacher (ex. secretary or something) is utterly convinced that hackers are evil beings and that Bill Gates will free the world from these evil doers... the most advanced thing we have done in that class is writing a letter in Word 2000 (!) its kinda annoying learning feauteres that you will never use in programs you hardly ever use. i thank the allmighty computer God for PuTTy and cprogramming.com or else i would have been bored out of my mind

Most programming teachers do seem to have a lack of technical knowledge which shocks and dissappoints me. I feel that while you don't need to know every aspect of a language to use it, if you want to call yourself a teacher then you should at least be book smart about the language and understand how to use it correctly.

Well, as has been said, good programmers are probably out coding, not teaching, at least HS. Probably some exceptions. But take an experienced programmer who decides to teach. She's probably been working with a language version a release or two earlier than this year's model, so there goes the most current version. Maybe he started out in C but mostly did SOAP or Com applications the last couple years.
Then they have to get certified as teachers, at least in most US states, not all. Then they have to get a job. The school or state has to approve the curriculum. The school has to buy the equipment, software and licenses. This is likely a several year process.
Then they have to teach 50 - 80 kids a day (3-4 classes of 15 - 20 kids). Some of these kids are whizzes. Some are delinquents. Some are thinking about their boyfriend/girlfriend, or the party on Friday, or the zit on their chin. Some just don't learn it as well.
That's no excuse for incompetence, but it's not so easy teaching virtual functions and base class pointers to high school and grade school kids either.